Northwestern ready to get down to business

Tim Cronin

Thursday

Aug 30, 2007 at 12:01 AMAug 30, 2007 at 8:25 AM

One in a series of stories previewing the 2007 college football season.

Tyrell Sutton has a one-word explanation for Northwestern’s 2006 season.
“Fluke,” the junior running back said a few days ago. “Last season was a huge downfall for us. It was a fluke.”
It was also wrenching emotionally.
The season began with tragedy, the sudden death of head coach Randy Walker early last summer. It continued with the naming of 31-year-old assistant Pat Fitzgerald, who had not even held a coordinator’s position, as Walker’s replacement. It featured a series of wildly erratic performances, the first a loss to Division I-AA New Hampshire, the worst coming against Michigan State, when the Wildcats blew a 35-point lead to hand the Spartans the last win of John L. Smith’s coaching tenure.
The end result was a 4-8 overall record and a 2-6 mark in the Big Ten, which placed them eighth in the conference, tied with Iowa.
“Last year, football was not the priority,” Fitzgerald admitted. “Football was a great escape from reality.”
This year?
“We’re focused on getting back to business,” Fitzgerald said.
The Wildcats believe stability will lead to success. If there is success for the season, it has to come quickly, for Northwestern opens with three nonconference home games against beatable teams before facing Ohio State and Michigan back to back.
“We’ve got to start fast,” Fitzgerald said. “The great thing about the Big Ten is, if you win six games, you go bowling.”
Northwestern’s schedule includes Minnesota, Eastern Michigan and Indiana as the leaves turn, so a six-plus-win season is possible. But the Wildcats likely need Sutton, who ran for exactly 1,000 yards last season on top of almost 1,500 as a freshman, to finish in four figures again to have a bowl-worthy year. For all the sleight-of-hand the spread offense provides a quarterback, Northwestern has used the formation to advance the ball on the ground far more effectively than it has through the air.
That’s thanks to the series of running backs the Wildcats have had going back to Bryon Sanders, who ran for 1,062 yards in 1988, when Walker was the running backs coach. Since then, Bob Christian, Dennis Lundy, Darnell Autry, Adrian Autry, Damien Anderson, Jason Wright and Noah Herron have run for 1,000 or more yards in a season. Now it’s Sutton, who would be the first Northwestern back to do it in three seasons.
“It’s not just on me to shoulder the offense,” Sutton said. “It’s on everybody.”
That would include quarterback C.J. Bacher, receiver Ross Lane (who will see more playing time with Andrew Brewer, injured in training camp, out for the season) and offensive linemen Trevor Rees and Dylan Thiry, among others. But it will start with Sutton and an offensive line that Fitzgerald says is deep enough to rotate at every position.
On defense, it will start with sophomore defensive end Corey Wootton, who piled up 51 tackles as a freshman, and senior middle linebacker Adam Kadela, who led the squad with 80 stops. Fitzgerald, a two-time national defensive player of the year at linebacker, says he couldn’t play the position Kadela holds down.
“The neck-roll guy that I was? He’s a dinosaur now,” Fitzgerald said. “With the spread offenses we see, you need speed.”
The Wildcats were beaten by speed and sheer force last season, surrendering 314 points, including 30 or more on seven occasions. Inexperience was part of the reason.
“It’s still a very young group,” Fitzgerald said of a unit that includes five senior starters but an overwhelming majority of underclassmen in backup roles. “We made mistakes. We did things we had to correct.”
Northwestern also has to replace placekicker Joel Howells and punter Slade Larscheid.
Saturday’s opener against Northeastern provides a cautionary tale. The Huskies are from the same small-school league as New Hampshire, which stunned NU last year. And Northeastern beat New Hampshire later in the season. Thus, there is no excuse for the Wildcats not to treat the Huskies, 5-6 last season, with the utmost respect.
“Last year, we learned a valuable lesson,” Fitzgerald said.
How thoroughly it was learned, Fitzgerald and his team find out Saturday.
More college sports is at www.dailysouthtown.com/sports.

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